『Abstract
　This paper reviews the ecological environment protection measures of Chinese rural hydropower development schemes. China's rapid economic growth is making great energy demands and developing rural hydropower currently provides 30.4 GW annually. There is a conflict of interest between hydropower development and ecological and environmental protection. Potential problems include changes in hydrogical condition, eutrophication, downstream nutrient reduction, sediment deposition, aquatic ecosystem alteration, and ecological water demand variation. Since most of the rural hydropower resources are located in ecologically fragile regions, it is significantly more important that ecological environment protection is being considered. As exploitation of rural hydropower has developed in China, ecological environment protection schemes had to adapt to changing boundary conditions. Due to improvements in environmental protection management, various environmental impact assessment methods have been applied including fuzzy analysis hierarchy process, ecological scheduling, pressure-state-response, and ecological environment evaluation index. The latter index can both qualitatively and quantitatively analyze ecological environment impacts and has become the most frequently used tool in the evaluation of rural hydropower exploitation. To rebalance the interests regarding energy generation and environmental protection, countermeasures originating from different aspects such as engineering design optimization, management improvement, and ecological restoration were recommended to promote ecological environmental protection. The review concludes that by taking ecological environment protection into consideration in the whole rural hydropower plan, adopting ecological scheduling to guarantee river ecological water demand and implementing ecological restoration in watershed management are the most effective approaches in furthering sustainable development of rural hydropower.

Keywords: Aquatic ecology; Deposition; Eutrophication; Sediment; Sustainable development; Water supply』

1. Rural hydropower development in China
　1.1. Rural hydropower resource potential and distribution
　1.2. History of rural hydropower development
　1.3. Ecological environment protection during rural hydropower development
2. Impacts of rural hydropower development on the ecological environment
　2.1. Positive effects
　2.2. Negative effects
　　Changes to the hydrological conditions
　　Water eutrophication and downstream nutrient reduction
　　Sediment deposition
　　Variation in aquatic ecosystem structure
　　Threatening of the ecological water demand
　2.3. Characteristics of rural hydropower development impacts on the ecological environment
3. Methods for eco-environmental assessment for rural hydropower development activities
　3.1. The FAHP method
　3.2. The ES model
　3.3. Pressure-state-response model
　3.4. The EEEI model
4. Ecological environment protection countermeasures for rural hydropower developments
　4.1. Engineering design optimization
　4.2. Ecological environment restoration
　4.3. Management improvements
5. Summary, conclusions, and further work
Acknowledgments
References